to picture himself, "a life ordinary and without luster; 't is all one; all moral philosophy may as well be applied to a common and private life, as to one of richer composition; every man carries the entire form of human condition." Such was the philosophical conception which underlay the personal essay as it was finally developed by Montaigne.

The Essais, popular from the first in France, were not long in making their way across the Channel into England. In 1595, three The Essais years after Montaigne's death, a copyright was issued for in England an English translation, possibly the one which appeared in 1603. This version was the work of a literary schoolmaster named John Florio. As a representation of the original it was far from faithful. It was written, however, in picturesque if somewhat obscure English, and it acquired enough popularity in the early seventeenth century to make necessary at least two reprintings. In this translation, or in the original French, the Essais were read by an extensive public, which numbered some of the most eminent names in Elizabethan letters. Under these circumstances it is not strange that the literary genre which Montaigne created-the informal, personal essay - should have become naturalized in England.

Bacon's

in sixteenth

century collections of

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"" Of

The first work by an English writer to bear the name of the new form appeared in 1597. Early in that year Francis Bacon, then a rising lawyer in the service of the queen, published a first essays: small volume entitled Essayes. Religious Meditations. their source Places of persuasion and disswasion. The "essayes" were ten in number: Of Study," "Of Discourse," Ceremonies and Respects," "Of Followers and Friends," "sentences" "Of Suitors," " Of Expense," " Of Regiment of Health,” "Of Honour and Reputation," " Of Faction," and " Of Negotiating." In reality they were not essays in the Montaigne sense at all, but rather short collections of "sentences or aphorisms, of a type which had been familiar throughout Europe during the whole of the sixteenth century. Each piece consisted of a series of brief, pointed maxims relating to the general subject proposed at the beginning; there was little attempt at order; and the individual maxims were quite devoid of concrete illustration or development of any kind. Fundamentally Bacon's purpose in writing the book was not to discuss questions of morals or psychology in the light of his own experience in life, but to

furnish in a condensed, memorable form practical counsel to those ambitious of success in public affairs. Only the title, it would seem, came from Montaigne, and that was doubtless added some time after the book itself was completed.

It was not long, however, before essays really of the Montaigne type made their appearance. In two volumes, published in 1600 and Cornwallis's 1601, Sir William Cornwallis, a friend of Ben Jonson, Essays brought out a collection of fifty-two pieces, for the most part short, dealing with such general themes as resolution, patience, love, glory, ambition, discourse, fame, judgment, sorrow, vanity, fortune, and the like. Like Montaigne, to whom in several passages of warm praise he acknowledged his debt, Cornwallis wrote his Essays largely in the first person, made abundant illustrative use of examples," some from ancient historians and poets, some from his own experience, and in general afforded a rather full revelation of his ideas, tastes, and sentiments. As a result, in part no doubt, of this strong personal note, his book shared during the first third of the seventeenth century not a little of the popularity of its model. The next important occurrence in the history of the new genre in England was the appearance in 1612 of an enlarged edition of the Essays of Bacon. From ten in the edition of 1597 the number of chapters had now become thirty-eight. The first essays were reprinted without fundamental change; here and there new maxims were added, and some of the old ones given a slight degree of development; but on the whole their original. character remained unaltered. Of the newer essays a few, such as "Of Praise," "Of Delay," and "Of Fortune," belonged essentially to the old type of "sentences"; the majority, however, exhibited traits which showed that Bacon's conception of the essay as a form and his own methods of writing were beginning to change. Thus, in many of the pieces there appeared a more marked element of order and composition; quotations and "examples," usually very briefly indicated, became an established feature of the exposition; in a word, the old ideal of a collection of detached maxims began to give place, in Bacon's mind, to that of a more continuous and living discourse. This evolution, clearly apparent in the essays first published in 1612, became still more pronounced in the final collection which Bacon put forth in 1625. The total number of essays was now

Bacon's Essays of 1612

Bacon's Essays of 1625

increased to fifty-eight. Of the old ones nearly all had been subjected to some revision, those of 1612 undergoing the greatest change. The result was a body of writing which differed in several important features from the Essays of 1597. For one thing, many of the pieces now exhibited something like orderly and planned composition; instead of merely juxtaposed maxims, there was now, in many cases (as in the essay "Of Friendship"), a clear and explicit development by points. The average length also had increased; many of the new essays covered from six to ten pages. Furthermore, the style was different — without losing its epigrammatic flavor, it was fuller, richer in imagery, more circumstantial. But the most significant changes were the increase in the number of historical "examples" and the introduction of a certain amount of personal opinion and reminiscence. Scarcely an essay now but had its illustrations from ancient or modern history; in some pieces (as, for example, "Of Empire") they occupied nearly as much space as the general reflections which they served to clarify and illuminate. Along with them appeared for the first time anecdotes derived from Bacon's own experience in life; as when, in the essay Of Prophecies," he reported the "trivial prophecy, which I heard when I was a child," that "When hempe is sponne, England's done." More and more, too, he formed the habit of stating his opinions in the first person.

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Such were some of the differences in form and spirit which separated Bacon's essays of 1625 from their predecessors of 1597. SevCauses of the transformation in Bacon's Essays

eral influences probably combined to produce the change. In the first place, one of Bacon's dreams for a number of years past had been the construction of a science of morals. In his De Augmentis Scientiarum (1623) he had proposed as a means to this end the writing of short monographs on each of the passions, virtues, and types of character. He never carried out his design in full; but it is not unlikely that such essays as those "Of Envy" and "Of Simulation and Dissimulation," which were among the most finished and orderly of the 1625 group, were composed as examples of the monographs he had in view. Another probable influence was that of the Epistles of Seneca (first century A.D.), one of the most widely read of ancient works on morals, a book constantly quoted by Bacon. In a canceled preface to the edition of

1612 he had remarked of the title of his own book: "The word is late, but the thing is ancient. For Seneca's Epistles to Lucilius, if one mark them well, are but essays, that is, dispersed meditations, - though conveyed in the form of epistles." Finally, much of the impetus to the change in his methods of writing, particularly after 1612, would appear to have come from Montaigne. Montaigne's influence it was, in all likelihood, that led Bacon to cultivate a more picturesque style, to develop his meager aphorisms into connected discourses, to multiply illustrations of all kinds, and — though to a very limited degree-to speak of himself.

Differences

between the essays of Bacon and

Yet, in spite of this influence, the type of essay which Bacon developed resembled only superficially that of Montaigne. In form it was shorter, more compact and orderly, and far less personal; in content it had a practical bias which for the most part Montaigne's wanted. From first to last Bacon's purpose Montaigne was to give, from his own extensive knowledge of life and history, sound advice which would profit those whose ambition it was to rise in the world of courts and council chambers. The title which he prefixed to the edition of 1625 — Essays, or Counsels Civil and Moral - exactly expressed his aim. His book was to be a manual of morality and policy for aspiring courtiers and statesmen. It is true that in the second and third editions he included essays of a more general sort - meditations on truth, death, beauty, friendship. But, aside from the fact that even here a certain amount of worldly wisdom crept in, these essays were far less typical of the work as a whole than those which dealt with such themes as the practice of dissimulation, the relative advantage of marriage and single life to public men, the means of rising to great place, the best method of dealing with rebellious subjects, the value of travel in the education of a gentleman, the management of an estate, the causes which make nations great, the best way to govern colonies, the economy of princely buildings and gardens. In short, though almost certainly indebted to Montaigne for a number of characteristic features,— for the most part, to be sure, features which Montaigne derived from the writers of leçons,- Bacon's Essays really introduced a new and distinct variety of the genre.

During the thirty-five years which elapsed between the completion of Bacon's work and the Restoration, several other writers tried their

Decline of

tween Bacon

and the

hands at the familiar essay. With some of these the dominant inspiration was Bacon, with others Montaigne. Thus Owen Felltham in his Resolves: Divine, Moral, Political (cir. 1620; a the essay be- second part in 1628) adapted Bacon's later method and style to the exposition of ideas quite unlike Bacon's in Restoration their emphasis on the religious and devotional side of life; while Sir Thomas Browne in his Religio Medici (written about 1635, published in 1642) united with a quaint picturesqueness of thought and expression peculiar to himself, not a little of Montaigne's characteristic manner of personal revelation. Neither of these writers, however, nor any of their fellows, had any appreciable influence on the development of the essay. They wrote, moreover, at a time when the essay as a type was undergoing a marked eclipse of its earlier popularity. No doubt in part this eclipse was due to the superior attractiveness for the men of this generation of the character "; no doubt in part also it reflected the absorption of the ablest minds of the period in the political and religious controversies which preceded and accompanied the Civil War. Whatever the causes, an eclipse took place, and it was not until the more peaceful days of the Restoration that essay-writing again assumed a place of prominence among the activities of literary Englishmen.

4

Revival of the essay after the Restoration

-the influ

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In this revival, as in the original introduction of the form, the allimportant factor was the influence of Montaigne. After suffering a temporary obscuration during the period of the Civil War, Montaigne's popularity became greater than ever during the last forty years of the seventeenth century. The causes that contributed to this result were principally ence of Mon- two: the greatly increased interest in French literature taigne which characterized the public of the generation after the Restoration, and the appeal which Montaigne made to the growing current of scepticism and free-thought. In 1685 Charles Cotton, a poet and translator, the joint author with Izaak Walton of The Compleat Angler, published a new version of the Essais, which went through three editions by 1700 and completely superseded Florio's now largely obsolete translation. The admirers of Montaigne included some of the most distinguished and influential persons of the age. He was a favorite author of the poet Cowley; Dryden referred to 4 See below, p. xxxi.